I think I bought this when some recommendations algorithm suggested I might enjoy it – can’t remember now which one. Anyway, I started off thinking that it was rather better than Ian McEwan’s Atonement; by the end I no longer thought so, but still glad I read it. Things I liked: the portrayal of childhood, friendship, awful betrayal; the descriptions of life in Afghanistan (and to a lesser extent of Pakistan). Things I was less keen on: child abuse, and a certain running out of narrative steam towards the end. One point I was expecting but didn’t find: reflections on being an exile, I guess because it is something I think about a lot of myself. Still, a good book.